May the Power Protect the Quaffle?
by ThePink1 at Reefside.Net
Summary: Just a bit of nonsense about what a Quidditch match between the Mystic Force Rangers and the Gryffindors might fly like.
1. Prologue

May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Author's note: No characters were harmed in the typing of this document.

They'd done it! The forces of the Master of Evil Magic were on their final plunge into the Eternal Void, and the Mystic Rangers had finally prevailed! Unfortunately, not without losses; Zander, who had come through the battle minus his left arm, spent great amounts of time in the medical library, researching limb regeneration; almost as much time as Vida, who wanted to find a cure for the final spells the Master had inflicted on her sister Maddie, now a lycanthrope. Now, for the others, all that was left was the inevitable cleanup to round up those members of the Dark Army who'd fled the battle early in fear or from injury, and convert or condemn them with their fellows.

Even as news of their great victory was being sent 'round the world's magical community, another uproar was raised in the British Isles. He-who-must-not-be-praised, the Dark Lord Voldemort, had finally been vanquished in a titanic battle with his greatest nemesis, Harry Potter, forever after known as the Boy Who Triumphed! Not alone, though; for Harry, too, had had his share of teammates, per se: including some of his former Hogwarts classmates, Gryffindor housemates, and especially Quidditch teammates, through to the bittersweet end. Poor Neville, who'd only wanted to grow up and be as brave a wizard as his parents, now joined them in their peaceful ward in St. Mungo's; driven insane by the Death Eater high enchantress, Bellatrix Lestrange. Former joke-product business tycoon George Weasley had hung up his fancy hat and dress robes and taken up his wand to help hunt her down along with any other remaining Death Eaters, to avenge his twin brother Fred's murder during the final battle.

Within a few weeks, everything was back to relatively normal on both sides of the pond', with the final arrest of Bella and the surrender of her Death Eater cronies, and Claire's timely discovery of a recent potion developed to help werewolves fight their bloodthirst at full moons. Suddenly, the Mystic Force had nothing but time on it's hands, waiting around Rootcore for the inevitable rise of the Next Great Threat to Earth that would prompt them back into action.

Claire took it upon herself to keep the Rangers busy with more than make-work and random spell-learning. Digging out her old, dog-eared and much-beloved copy of Quidditch Through the Ages, she started teaching the high-flying heroes some new tricks on their brooms. Before long, even the normally taciturn Lienbow was heard cheering on his son Bowen and their friends as they swooped and swerved about on their broomsticks, passing the Quaffle back and forth and dodging the Bludger (they only had one,) with increasing skill.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Magic, in an effort of goodwill, (and to get an increasingly restless Harry out of the vicinity,) had arranged a whirlwind world tour for the Heroes of Hogwarts, as the steadfast members of Harry's circle of friends and fellow students had become known. In short order Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, George, Katie, Angelina, & Luna had been the first Hogwarts students in several centuries to behold the gilt halls of Beauxbatons and the infamous crenellated towers of Durmstrang.

About two months after the great battle with Voldemort, Harry and company arrived in the Americas, their number now including Ron's older brothers Charlie and Bill, along with Bill's wife Fleur, now four months pregnant with their first child. The couple was on their much-belated honeymoon, and without definite plans for a vacation, was accompanying the others simply to 'see the world'. Charlie was on a fact-finding trip for his work in the Romanian dragon preserve; they had recently heard of a new dragon hatchling being found in California, and since his family was headed that way anyway, his bosses had sent him along to learn what he could about the young drake's situation. Thus it was inevitable that the two great teams of magical young heroes should meet, in the mystical forest bordering Briarwood.

Author's Postscript: That's it for now; tell me if you want to see any romance or other entanglements, otherwise next chapter is just going to be the meeting of the teams.

Post-postscript: Teasers & trailers have become popular so I figure I'd throw in a couple for you especially impatient readers:

To everyone's astonishment, Hermione tapped the lone Bludger twice and intoned "Addadenda." With a faint 'pop', a second Bludger made a sudden appearance in George's arms, and he staggered under the sudden additional weight. At the look of naked avarice gleaming in Ron's eyes, the bushy-haired young witch just shook her head and said, "Sorry, but it'll only last a few hours."

"If you two are going to snog after every goal we score, at least try to keep it under a minute at a time," Angelina groused acidly as she looped around them. She zoomed back towards their team's goal hoops, leaving Harry and Ginny to whirl and speed off in the other direction, each in a furious blush.


	2. Meeting of the Teams

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Two: the Meeting of the Teams

Charlie Weasley took a deep cleansing breath. "Aaaah. Nothing like the refreshing smell of a town that's not afraid of magic." The others just cast him sidelong glances and chuckled. Taking the rest of their vacation time here in Briarwood, where magic was known to the populace, was sounding better and better to the young Brits, who were frankly tired of attempting to pass for Muggles.

"You just need to get out of Romania more, Charlie," Ginny teased. "Spending too much time in a country that still has witch-burning on the books has got to be bad for you."

"Oy, everybody," George waved an arm till all the Hogwarts alumni were looking his way. "Eats!" he announced, pointing to a patio café surrounded by an antiqued bronze railing. As if on cue, Ron's stomach grumbled, to everyone's amusement. So off the Heroes of Hogwarts ambled, to Kleo's Kafe. Hermione wasn't the only one who noticed the unusual cat painted on the sign swinging over the entrance in the fencing. They were greeted by a young blonde-haired woman with a tag that proclaimed her name was Leelee. Without a blink, she ushered their large group across the patio to a row of small rectangular tables that the four Weasley brothers immediately started pushing together until there was adequate seating for all eleven of them. 'Adequate' at that point included four tables meant for six people each normally, as the whole of their party strung itself along one side just as if they were sitting down to lunch back in the Great Hall, everybody good-naturedly leaving the extra space between Ron and George so the two would have extra fork-waving room amongst them.

After a leisurely lunch of what Luna later called delightful local fair, the young wizards and witches were just getting into the usual 'friendly discussion' over settling the bill, when Hermione's ginger cat Crookshanks made his presence known with a plaintive meow as he hopped up into her lap. "There you are, you fuzzy fellow," Hermione crooned as she ran one hand down the length of his back all the way to his bottle-brush tail-tip. He purred imperiously as if her ministrations were no more than his due, and even deigned to accept a sliver of corned-beef that had somehow escaped from Ron's Reuben sandwich from his Witch's boyfriend's hand. Even as Ginny was giggling over his imperious act, his thunder was stolen from under him; literally.

With a loud yowl of greeting, another bundle of fur introduced itself to the hem of Hermione's robes, tweaking just enough length from under Crookshanks that he flattened out, driving his nails painfully through her clothes and into her leg. Witch and familiar's hiss were eerie counterpoint.

"Now, really, Kleo," Leelee admonished as she appeared at the end of their tables. "That's no way to treat paying customers … " Her voice trailed of as she caught sight of the offended tom in Hermione's grip. "Ah, I should have known there was someone over here attracting her attention. Always chasing after the boys, aren't you, sweetie?"

"You mean there's another of those monsters in the world?" Ron gulped. He wasn't the only one to notice the similarities between the two felines, from the flattened face to the bottle-brush tuft at the end of their tails, the cats could have been twins, except for their colors. Where Crookshanks was as orange as any Weasley's hair, Kleo was a charcoal grey from nose to toes, with the characteristic Kneazle tiger-stripes running down her back.

The dusky short-haired cat slinked around to George's legs, her triumphant purr a loud rumble in the café's quiet corner. Crookshanks gave a short-tempered 'mrow' in response from the sanctuary of Hermione's lap. "Well, now we know who Kleo is," George stated, leaning a little to his right to present his hand for inspection to the curious cat. With barely a cursory sniff, Kleo ran her length along his outstretched fingers, even winding her tufted tail around his wrist as she turned to pass back the other way. "Right friendly little puss, aren't you?"

"As friendly as the people you'll likely meet in Briarwood. Let me guess," Leelee continued, while stacking up some of the dishes at that end of the tables. "English tourists, on vacation for the summer, and curious about all the rumors about 'Power Rangers' and 'Magic' in the news about here, righ …?" Her voice trailed off as she got around to where Harry and Ginny were sitting, hands intertwined between them. Harry looked around to find out what had stolen her attention, only to have Ginny's elbow bring his eyes back to the young blonde woman, who was frozen in shock with one plate dangling in her hand, staring intently at his forehead. He hurriedly mussed his hair so it covered his scar again, but the damage was done. "You … you're Harry Potter, aren't you?" At his reluctant nod and sheepish grin, Leelee whirled around, eyeing the others more closely. "Th … that means, the rest of you are, … are …"

"Blimey, Harry," George started, his smile threatening to split his face in half. "We can't take you anywhere, can we, mate?"

Leelee's shift ended a half-hour later, and she met the Heroes of Hogwarts at the entrance to the Rockporium, as she'd promised. "I know I said I wouldn't blab about you all being who you are to every Tim, Doug, and Sally, but there're some people here who've just GOT to know the truth," Leelee was saying as she led the group into the music store.

Across the Rockporium, Vida was jammin' away, her arms waving back and forth in an intricate dance of her own devising. Her sister Maddie was sitting in her customary stool, across the board in front of the stage, vidcam in hand and one foot tapping in time with Vida's newest remix. When her sister stopped weaving to the beat all of a sudden, an incredulous look on her face, Maddie paused the tape and wheeled around on her stool to see what was shocking enough to make Vida pause mid-track. A dozen people were filing into the store behind Leelee, their faces showing an even mix of bemused and apprehensive expressions. Four of the men had hair so red it had to be real, and their features were enough alike they were probably related to boot. A young woman at the back of the group had flaming orange hair that matched the four men, and her arm was locked so tightly with the bespectacled, raven-haired boy next to her Maddie wondered if he was still getting circulation in that limb. Watching the group spread out from the foyer, other couples became obvious; The oldest redheaded man, his face covered with faded scars, was solicitously handling a bewitching young woman with hair so white it seemed to glow under the new track lighting Toby had just installed in the store. A bushy-haired brunette woman was tugging on the sleeve of the tallest redhead, pointing out a solitary CD in the imports rack and laughing with him. Maddie's organized brain took a second to remember the name of the lone album in that bin, and for the life of her couldn't figure out why it should amuse these two so much, until their accents registered, and she remembered that the Weird Sisters, an all-male rock group with a VERY eclectic following, were from the British Isles, as were these newest patrons of the Rockporium. Grinning ruefully at her inadvertent use of her newly-heightened sense of hearing, she stepped off her stool and strode forward to see if she could help Leelee with this sudden British Invasion.

On sighting of the Rocca sisters, Leelee immediately swung into 'Hostess Mode', as the others had dubbed her customer service attitude lately. Swirling to a stop in front of the group even as Maddie walked over, she immediately started introducing the introverted young Water Ranger to the line of young men and women. "Madison! I'm glad you're here! You too, Vida! I want you two to meet some new friends of mine, straight from England!" She went on to introduce, by name, each of the Hogwarts alumni (she'd been rehearsing their names in a particular order in her head for most of the end of her shift,) starting with Angelina, then on though Bill and Fleur, Charlie, George, Ginny, Ron, (she'd figured on getting through the Weasleys all in one breath, and she even made it,) Hermione, Katie, Luna, and ending with Harry purposefully as she concluded, "Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived, now the Boy who Triumphed, I'd like to introduce two of my very first friends in Briarwood, Vida & Maddie Rocca, The Pink and Blue Mystic Power Rangers!"

Pandemonium ensued.

Author's Note: Sorry about the wait, folks, hopefully the next installment won't take nearly as long. Read and review, please.


	3. Meeting of the Teams Part 2

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Three: the Meeting of the Teams, Part 2

" … I'd like to introduce two of my very first friends in Briarwood, Vida & Maddie Rocca, The Pink and Blue Mystic Power Rangers!" These words were the first thing Nick heard as he walked into the Rockporium. Exchanging 'Should we worry?' looks with Xander and Chip, he rushed forward to the stage Vida kept her turntables on, the other guys following close behind. Even as he opened his mouth to enter the conversation, Xander beat him to the punch.

"Bloody Hell, Leelee, nice way to keep us under the radar," the Green Ranger yelled, the might of oaks ringing in his voice. "Why not just hire a PR rep and hold a press conference! I'm sure there're people in New Zealand who don't know who we are, yet!" He stood fuming before her, waving his stump before her nose as if the arm would reappear long enough to point accusingly at her. Chip was urgently trying to restrain Xander, even as his accusing looks at Leelee told her how much HE agreed with his overly-dramatic friend. Nick meanwhile was silently taking Maddie's hand in a show of camaraderie, their eyes meeting briefly in the joint readiness they'd garnered as teammates and more recently, lovers.

Vida meanwhile was fast-processing the introductions Leelee had just dumped in their laps. Only half of the names had registered right away, until the final young man's visage had connected with his name in her head. Realizing who had just strolled ever-so-casually into the Rockporium, she began running the interference Xander's rant had apparently scared straight out of Leelee. "Chip! Xander!" She startled them by both dropping down the double step from the stage into the space between them, and bellowing their names in a fair imitation of Daggeron's training voice. Glaring at one and then the other of the two men, until she was sure she had their attention, she waved a hand at the small crowd of Brits, who'd been subtly closing ranks in the alcove by Toby's office, Harry prominently in front and distinctly on edge. At a glance, Vida didn't see any drawn wands, but from the way they all were standing, she could tell some of them either had theirs in hand or within easy drawing range.

"Do you know who he is?" Vida started in, singling out Harry with a grand gesture, catching the young wizard's eye with a wink. Harry relaxed imperceptibly, and the young red-haired girl beside him sighed and smiled at Vida.

"Now how would I bloody know who this guy is … " Xander started, but Vida could tell, from the break in his voice and the stunned look that crossed his face, as well as the complete drain of color that suddenly afflicted Chip, exactly when realization hit both men.

"There, there, Xander. I knew spending time in a library wasn't a complete waste for you," Vida murmured reassuringly. Then she looked at Chip, who was still way too pale. "Chip?" Vida was conscious of the other Mystic Rangers descending from the stage to gather around the three of them, ranged almost unconsciously in a spectrum row. "Charlie?" she tried again, using his name to make her concern plain to him.

"Wot?" asked one of the red-headed men from behind Harry. Luna and Leelee both giggled, and Vida turned her head back that way just in time to see the bushy-haired witch on Harry's other side elbow the shortest of the red-haired men, who Vida belatedly remembered was Charlie Weasley. She turned back to face Chip – HER Charlie – with a small smile. That's when she noticed; he wasn't looking at Harry at all! His entire attention was taken up with the pale woman standing at the back of the group in front of Toby's office door.

Fleur deLacour Weasley had her husband Bill's hand in a deathgrip, her Veela ancestry unconsciously spreading attractant and becalming pheromones around her in an attempt to dispel the imperceptible looming hostility. Unfortunately, the first victim HAD to be Chip.


	4. Makings of a Match

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Four: The Makings of a Match

Fleur Isabelle deLacour Weasley had her husband Bill's hand in a deathgrip, her Veela ancestry unconsciously spreading attractant and becalming pheromones around her in an attempt to dispel the imperceptible looming hostility. Unfortunately, the first victim HAD to be Chip.

Leelee noticed the cause first; her vampiric side rearing its head at the assault on her senses. Turning in Fleur's direction, she found Maddie uncannily echoing her as she said, "What are you doing to him?"

"What? What du yu mean?" the pale Frenchwoman asked. Chuckling, Bill leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

"I think they mean your Veela aura, love. Looks like you're driving the boys mad here, too." The rest of the Weasley brothers laughed, and Fleur hung her head with blushing cheeks.

"But of course, my dear Will'am." She gave him two kisses to each cheek, and smiled at the rest of the room after a long relaxing breath. "Zair. Better, no?" Maddie, after a careful sniff, nodded in relief. Leelee grinned.

"Veela, huh? I've heard of them, but I never met someone who could boast of one for an ancestor. My boyfriend's a troblin, though, so nothing surprises me." The Hogwarts crowd all gave her a strange look (Ron the longest, until Hermione elbowed him in the ribs, and he glanced away with a mumbled "_Sorry_.")

"Whoa, are theah any more loike you at home?" Zander asked Fleur, waggling his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. Vida slapped him on the back of the head, and everybody else laughed. And just like that, the Boy who Triumphed and the other Heroes of Hogwarts became friends with the Mystic Force Rangers.

_Quidditch_

"Ye're serious," Zander interrupted. "You want us to go up against the undefeated Quidditch champions of Hogwarts? Without ANY real playing experience? We'll come off worse than that first fight with Koragg! No offense …" he muttered in an aside to Leanbow, who just chuckled nastily. "Besides, Clare, we don't even have a full set of supplies, let alone a pitch …"

"Actually, Clare and I have already addressed the supplies problem," Hermione said from the doorway, closing her cell phone. "I've just gotten an e-mail from Bowman Wrightworks in Godric's Hollow that our Snitch is on its way. You lot have enough training gear that flight pads aren't at a loss, and Phineas thinks he knows of a clearing large enough to make a pitch, at least after some work, he said. That just leaves the question of the Bludger. I might have a solution for that, but I want to talk to Udonna first."

"Why didn't you just order a Bludger from the Wrightworks at the same time, Hermione?" George sat forward from where he was lounging against the stairs. "They make them as well. I should know; that's where Professor McGonagall ordered our replacement from after you blew up the Bludger Dobby jinxed in your second year."

"Well, I would have, but they said they would have to send it by Muggle Post, and I really don't see the American's Homeland Security letting a self-propelled cannonball through Customs, do you?"

"Whoy would they have to use the Post?" Zander asked, curiosity piqued.

"Well, they can send a Snitch by Owl Post, meaning it'll be here in next to no time, but no owl born can carry a Bludger," Hermione sniffed primly, while George snorted uproariously.

_Quidditch_

_Author's Note:_ It's come to my attention that this fic has been ignored by me for too long. In an effort to make amends, I am posting the abridged version. Anyone who would like me to put up the LONG story I'm still bludgeoning out from between cracks in my writer's block of a skull, please PM or review to let me know of your interest, and ... patience. In the meantime, enjoy what I already had worked out. The match itself is next, barring overwhelming reader response for the rest of the lead-up. Catch ya all on the flipside, so don't get caught in the downslide, A J.


	5. Makings of a Match Part 2

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter 4 ½: the Leadup

"Okaiy, jest sou everybody's cleah, this match is strictly exhibition, roight?"

"Don't worry, Zander, no one will think less of you for not being 'up to form' out there," Vida said, and patted him on the shoulder of his newly-conjured arm. Harry had let Udonna place him in hypnotic regression to find out what spell Tom Riddle had used to create a new hand for Peter Pettigrew, and the Mystic Mentor had put the strange spell to task to form Zander a replacement limb. The Green Ranger flexed the metallic fingers cautiously, still fascinated.

"All right, you lot, let's get padded up and grab our brooms!" Charlie Weasley, the token 'ringer' on their team, gave Vida and Chip resounding claps to the back, grinning. "Godric's galleons, it's gonna be good to get in the air without a firebreathing menace two seconds behind me."

Ginny, overhearing him through the partition between the teams' changing rooms, just yelled back "Move out of Romania, Charlie!" The others all chuckled at the now-familiar joke.

"Alright, I will, Gin!" he yelled back. "But you have to break it to mum I've gone to America on a California Gold Rush!"

Ginny Weasley apparated two centimeters in front of her brother, glaring out through the sleeve of the Red Quidditch robe she was only half-way into. "You wouldn't dare, you … you … Dragonchaser!" Clare burst into giggles and Maddie and Nick ducked out into the corridor leading to the Pitch. The pair's laughter was impossible to miss.

"Sadly, an incurable one, sis," Charlie said with a smirk as he reached out and tugged her robes the rest of the way over her head. "Now get back to your own team before we tie you up for spying." He spun her and gave her a shove back out the door. "Nick! Maddie! Get your arses back in here!" Once the whole of the Mystic Force was gathered around him, he lowered his voice. "Now, what say we switch this up a little, and give them a real surprise, eh? I know you wanted me to try at Keeper or Seeker, with my experience, but I've seen you lot practicing, and I've got an idea …"

_Quidditch_

"Seriously, Bill, you ought to take Keeper. You're loads better than I ever will be." The other two Weasley brothers exchanged glance behind Ron's back.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think Ickle Ronnie-kins' nerves were crashing and burning again." George shook his head. "C'mon, what'll it take? Need a verse of 'Weasley is our King' to work you up to it? 'Cause if it is, I've been working on new words all morning." He waggled his orange brows threateningly until Ron just folded, laughing.

"_You know you're incorrigible,"_ Bill muttered to George, who just beamed back.

"Of course! I learned from the best, didn't I?" They got their robes straightened out, and clapped forearms. "Beaters' best!" the two brothers intoned together, as Ginny came back in with a sour look on her face.

"I think he may mean it," she said sadly, looking back over her shoulder.

"Wotcher, Ginny?" Harry asked, standing up from the bench where he'd been retying his trainers.

"You haven't seen the looks he's been giving Clare, have you?" She wrung her hands in a fair imitation of her mother for a second, then stamped her foot and glared up at her boyfriend. "How'd you like to move to Briarwood, Harry?"

Floored by the question, Harry could only gape at her like a landed merman. His expression got her to laugh, so he considered his job done for the moment, and grinned down at her. "I love your laugh, Ginny Weasley," he said, and leaned down and kissed her.

"OY!" her brothers all yelped, seeing their sister swapping tongue-space. Never mind if he was the Boy who Lived …

'_Ahem.'_ Fleur, Katie and Hermione were all by the lockers, and the three gave their hypocritical boyfriends saucy winks, with obvious 'Leave those two alone' nods.

"Are we all set?" George asked, grabbing the crate with the Quidditch Balls in it. The weight reminded him. "Hey, Hermione, what was your solution for the Bludger prob?"

"Open it up," she answered, pulling her wand out.

To everyone's astonishment, Hermione tapped the lone Bludger twice and intoned "Addadenda." With a faint 'pop', a second Bludger made a sudden appearance in George's arms, and he staggered under the sudden additional weight. At the look of naked avarice gleaming in Ron's eyes, the bushy-haired young witch just shook her head and said, "Sorry, but it'll only last a few hours."

"You really are the smartest Witch ever, aren't you?" Ron pulled her in for a 'good luck' kiss of his own, and when he let her go, her cheeks were as red as the Weasley's hair.

With that, the two teams headed out onto the new Briarwood Quidditch Pitch.

* * *


	6. Store Closed for Quidditch

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Five: The Match, Part 1

The match started off to a rousing early rivalry; within moments, each team had managed at least two goals, partly on luck and mostly on complete unfamiliarity with the opposing sides' playing style. After twenty further minutes of furious flying, Ron of all people scored goal three for the Gryffindors. While wheeling around to block a strong overhand throw from Chip, he whacked the Quaffle with the tufted end of his faithful Cleensweep, sending it sailing straight through Clare's left goal ring. "HA! I told you I'd get that trick down, Harry!" he crowed triumphantly afterwards.

Harry whirled and dove sharply, marking Vida's path more than keeping an eye out for the Snitch. With his Firebolt, he knew he could beat her to the catch if need be. He'd decided instead to keep her distracted and make the match last a bit longer. To that end, he kept up a steady retinue of loops just in front of her alternated with sudden charges for random corners of the pitch. At one point, he was literally flying upside-down backwards in front of her as she lapped the Ranger's goalposts when he had to choke back a guffaw of hilarity.

Apparently, the same joker who had enchanted the Snitch Hogwarts used was responsible for this new one, too. The bedeviled little bugger was zooming along leisurely right behind Vida's head, staying just out of her peripheral vision more by dint of Harry's distracting flying than anything else. He hurriedly faked a double-take over his own left shoulder, and barrel-rolled away from Vida fast enough to leave virtual scorch marks. He flipped over into a spiral dive that Harry hoped would lead her even further off to her right, glancing over his shoulder to see whether she had fallen for his ruse.

With an inward cheer, he watched her follow his mad ground-rush at a wary pace; he'd mistakenly explained the Wronski Feint to her and the others just well enough that they knew not to follow him at top speed downwards without also having seen the Snitch. At least she hadn't noticed it shadowing her a moment ago, and now it had flitted off again, leaving both Seekers to start their hunt afresh.

He heard over the roar of the wind that his stunt hadn't gone unnoticed by the other players either. Ginny had snuck in a goal while Clare was preoccupied watching the microdrama between Harry and Vida. While the Mystic Force team members were still rallying, Harry floated up next to Ginny, and proceeded to congratulate her in a decidedly nonverbal fashion.

"If you two are going to snog after every goal we score, at least try to keep it under a minute at a time," Angelina groused acidly as she looped around them. She zoomed back towards their team's goal hoops, leaving Harry and Ginny to whirl and speed off in the other direction, each in a furious blush. Harry resumed his high-end spiraling, watching for the Snitch with a renewed single-mindedness. Ginny started back around from the Force's goal, waiting for a chance to intercept the Quaffle.

Nick swatted at an incoming Bludger, whacking it towards Katie's retreating form. "What d'you suppose that was all about?" he asked a passing Vida. The wind-powered Ranger only shrugged and shook her two-tone hair out of her eyes.

The next quarter-hour was whittled away a goal at a time, first one side and then the other. Quaffle-intercepting battles erupted frequently between the fiercely competitive pairs of Chip & Charlie on the Rangers' side, and Ginny & Katie from Gryffindor. At one point, Harry could swear the four were just passing it back and forth in a cross-pattern, wasting time until he or Vida finally found the now _very_-elusive Snitch. Angelina came whipping through the four, a Bludger from Leanbow hot on her broom's tail, and they broke up to continue the never-ending point-battle.

Vida thought she was chasing the Snitch down at one point, following the shining golden spot as it danced frenetically back and forth across the center of the pitch, until she got right under it and realized she'd wasted a good four minutes running down the reflected afternoon sunlight from Daggeron's golden Quijudge whistle. She wheeled up and gave him a blistering telling off, all the while trying to keep an eye on Harry from one corner or the other of her vision. Daggeron gave Gryffindor a penalty for her attitude, but he did change his whistle into silver to cut down on the confusion. Ginny missed the penalty by such a narrow margin, Harry thought she was rather taking the Seekers' side of the argument, and he flashed her a smile in thanks next time they passed each other.

A few goals after that, Harry could have sworn the ghost of the jinxed Bludger had come back to haunt him. One of the two ensorcelled iron balls was continually coming back after him for several minutes as he wove and swerved around at nearly ground-level. Then he caught sight of the shadow circling carefully behind his. Pulling back sharply on his Firebolt, Harry shot straight up as the Bludger shot back towards him, and he caught sight of Nick floating off to one side, cursing as Harry ran out of his 'target zone' and away from his carefully directed Bludger-corraling.

George floated up next to Harry for a moment, after giving the other Bludger a swat back in the direction of Charlie "the Traitor" Weasley, the Rangers' third Chaser. "Pity we forgot to tell him you've got prior experience with a rogue Bludger, eh Harry?" he yelled to the Gryffindor Seeker with a grin as they watched Charlie dodge and go haring off after the Quaffle just as Maddie dropped it behind her. She'd become an expert at the Porskoff Ploy, seeming to 'lose' the red leather ball over her shoulder, but all the while passing it to a nearby waiting teammate. George shook his head sadly. "We're getting slaughtered, Harry. You might want to find the little bugger for real, instead of just pretending in order to confuse the Pink gal." Bad news delivered, the messenger hurried off before the general could decide to shoot him after all.

Harry swerved over to the scoreboard side for a quick glance. He'd lost track of the lively commentary Luna and Phineas were delivering in the heady rush of being on his broom again, and was horrified to find that the Rangers were a solid ninety points ahead. Even as he was flying off to try to find the Snitch in earnest, he heard a chime sound behind him, and everyone on the pitch was treated to one of Ron's Tourette's-like rants of self-recrimination. Ginny, Charlie, and Hermione all screamed _"Ronald Weasley!"_ and their combined voices blended into such an eerie match for Molly Weasley's Howler-tones, the poor red-headed Keeper nearly fell out of the air in shock.

That was the next goal for the Rangers, by Chip, and Harry careened straight up to a level with the topmost banners of the surrounding stands, a good fifty feet over the Keeper's hoops. Pulling his wand out, he renewed the _Impervio_ spell on his glasses. The rainforest-like air in Southern California's mountains was more humid than that in Northern Scotland, and his glasses kept fogging over at the speeds he was flying. Wand put up again, he started a high-level circle, looking first down, then up, trying to figure out where this Snitch had decided to hide.

"Harry! _Harry!_ Get this thing off of me!" The Chosen one whirled around to see the damnable thing was in a tight orbit around Angelina Johnson a hundred feet below him. He snapped into a steep dive, cruising right for her and it, only to scream in anger as he saw Vida closing in from Angelina's left. Urging his Firebolt on to new speeds by sheer will, Harry flattened out over the broomstick, trying anything he could to streamline himself. It all turned out to no avail, though, but thankfully for the Gryffindors, in a good way.

Just as Vida was reaching out to grab the fluttering Snitch, her hand was swatted away by a bone-snapping Bludger that came so close to the still-orbited Angelina as well, the brown-skinned Welsh native screamed and fell off her broom. Everybody swerved to help catch her and the bleeding Vida, and Harry lost track of the Snitch again in the ensuing confusion.

After a two-minute time out for Udonna to fix Vida's arm, and for Angelina and Ron to beat their frustrations out on a practice dummy in the changing room, the two teams reconvened in the center of the pitch. Daggeron gave each team an encouraging nod, and threw the Quaffle back into the air with a toot of his whistle. Play resumed at an immediate furious pitch, but with Ron back on his game, the Rangers suddenly found their steady rise in points stalled out. Meanwhile Katie, Angelina and Ginny began a ruthless campaign against Clare, determined to even out the score. The poor Moon Sorceress, overwhelmed by their relentless assaults, didn't stand a chance. The gap slowly fell to forty points, thanks to the three Gryffindor Chasers, and Maddie and her two Charlies started to fly the whole field instead of passing the Quaffle in an effort to reduce their opponents intercepting opportunities.

Maddie managed another goal finally, performing a dizzying corkscrew maneuver straight at Ron in the center hoop, but releasing the Quaffle at the last second off to one side so the red ball arced into his left ring instead. Unfortunately, her momentum was such that she couldn't quite stop in time, and though she swerved at the end, Maddie ended up hanging out of the right hoop herself by her waist, her broom dangling from one hand as she clung with the other for dear life.

"You people are _trying_ to drive me crazy, aren't you?" Daggeron swore, as they took another thirty-second time-out while Ron and Chip helped Maddie back out of the hoop and onto her broom again. Vida gave her a thumbs-up for the whirlwind maneuver, cheering the while, even as she and Harry were using the break to try to spot the elusive Snitch again. And play resumed.

Twenty more minutes saw no change in the score, not for lack of trying from the six Chasers. They were stymied by an equal amount of effort from Ron and Clare as Keepers, and the two pairs of Beaters from each side. Bill in particular found great delight in letting his feral instincts lead him towards the next Bludger target, although he had to take great care to spread his servings of grief out evenly. His wolfish side had a tendency to try to hurt Chip and Charlie more than Maddie, seeing her as a pack-member through their common Lycanthropic curse.

Demonstrating their uncanny connection again, Leanbow and Nick weaved their way to the same space just as George caromed a Bludger up-field from the Mystic Force's end of the pitch. Swinging their Beater's Bats in synch, father & son were about to deliver yet another devastating Dopplebeater Defense aimed at the fast-swerving Ginny, when with an unexpected clap like thunder, the Bludger vanished amid a shower of faerie fire right as it reached the two men's position. The Beaters, already committed to their swings, whirled in complete 360-degree spins at breakneck speed through the expanding fireworks pattern. Nick lurched so hard to a stop he dropped his Bat trying to hold onto his broom. The unattended Bat whistled as it fell straight onto Harry's head from above. With an abrupt cry of pain, Harry went pin-wheeling to the ground, unconscious.

Harry came to a few moments later with a splitting headache. Ginny was leaning over him pensively, her fiery orange hair wind-tossed and scrunched to her forehead by her goggles. When she saw his eyes open, she let out a sob of relief and practically suffocated him with the force of her following hug.

"Alright, everybody, he's clearly still alive, so I guess we can call a few minutes' rest while Hermione conjures up another Bludger and Harry regains his wits," Daggeron called out with a barely restrained chuckle from about ten feet over their heads.

Vida scooped up the offending Beater's Bat, and flourished it in front of her like a microphone. "Good thing too. I could just see the dateline now. 'The Boy Who Triumphed Killed by The Light of Briarwood, Film at Eleven.' She gave a moue of disdain and tossed the Bat back to Nick, who nearly joined Harry on the freshly-concussed list when he barely caught the underhand throw in time.


	7. Intermezzo

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Six: Intermission

"Ghu," Charlie moaned. He sank onto one of the benches in the Rangers changing room. "They're taking my defection personally, I swear. Bill about took my head off, and the Bludger wasn't even near us. Mind, he called it 'practice swinging'." He made air quotes for the last two words with a groan.

"There, there," Clare said, settling next to him. She tried to rub his nearer shoulder, to soften it up enough for leaning on, but between his pads and tension, she gave it up as a lost cause. She settled for flopping back against her floral-print robes, hanging on the wall behind her. "Ugamumph," she sighed, and cast a glare in Zander's direction. "This is all your fault, Bly."

"Aw, come on, luv. Nou one could predict Oi'd puncture the &^\ Quaffle first successful block Oi made. We're jest luckiy you know whot ye're doing up theah." Zander had been Keeper for the Rangers for all of ten minutes at the beginning of the match, until his new metal limb had punched a hole into the leather ball. Deciding to retire instead of having to repair and reinflate the poor red thing every save, he'd nominated a nervous Clare into the air. She was as off-and-on as Ron Weasley keeper-wise, so the two teams were still on an even footing.

The Rangetrs were interrupted in musing on their teams' chances by Chip. _'Bleagh!'_ He was making faces and putting the cap back on a sport drink. "Don't we have anything besides these? I never could stand the taste."

"That's because you don't sweat sweat. You sweat cayenne sauce," Vida accused, swiping his bottle for herself. The other Rangers laughed, long used to the running joke, but Charlie looked at Clare in confusion.

"_He puts hot sauce on everything he eats," _she explained quietly. He nodded to her with an informed grin.

"Fred was …" he stalled for a second, his grin faltering. After a swallow from his own sport drink, he continued. "Our late brother Fred went through something like that last year. George told me about it at Christmas. For seven months, Fred only ate Indian food, and between the Madras sauce and curry powder, his body temperature went up three degrees permanently, and he bled pepper sauce when he cut himself shaving." The others chuckled, and Charlie cheered back up.

Clare gave him a sympathetic hug. Initially turning just to return the embrace, Charlie surprised her – and the others – by leaning her back against her robes again, and giving her an enthusiastic kiss.

Her '_Eeeph!_', and her low-voiced "Whew!" after he released her, were lost in the cries and cat-calls of the Rangers and a just-returning Leanbow.

"Sorry," Charlie said to the room at large once he'd come up for air amidst the noise. "jest couldn't help meself." His Ottery-St. Catchpole brogue sounded worse than Zander's in his effacement.

"Mmmm, don't be," Clare countered. She looped her arms around his nearer one, and sighed contentedly.

"Clare?" her cousin Nick asked, brows raised. She smiled at him, only to shrink back at the unexpected sight of his father's furious face.

"What? I'm not allowed to date, but Nick is?" she grumbled back, at which Leanbow visibly softened – to her at least. He kept giving dark glares to Charlie as soon as she looked away though, and the trained dragon-keeper gulped at his fierce demeanor. Angry dragons he was used to. But angry male relatives of the girl he was dating? He'd not had to deal with that in quite some time.

"_You _are_ past seventeen, aren't you?"_ he asked Clare in a whisper when Chip distracted Leanbow next.

Her giggled _"Nineteen next week!"_ earned them both another death glare.

"The only other thing we've got to drink," Leanbow said in a carrying voice, "is that witch's brew over there." He pointed to a (literally!) steaming cauldron plunked in one corner by a well-meaning fan.

"Oi wouldn't touch thait," Zander chuckled. "Oi'd recognize thait pot anywheah. Thait's old Grisilda's party cauldron. Siee thait dent next tou the front fooit? Thait's wheah Chip tripped oveh it at her New Yeah's Bash."

"Is that what it was? I thought I got on the wrong side of one of her garden gnomes!" Chip returned. Charlie and the others laughed.

"Sounds like me mum. We've got a regular tribe of the blasted things in our family garden, but da won't call Ministry pest control to get rid of 'em for good."

"Oooh!" Clare chirped. "I'll have to send some of our anti-gnome spray home with you. Aunt Udonna cooked it up years ago when there was a breeding surge." She giggled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "They started to actually climb Rootcore to get to our balcony herb gardens.

He returned her kiss with a chuckle. "That's saying I go back, luv." That innocent missive earned the pair a round of _'Ooooh!'_s and another glare from Leanbow.

_Quidditch_

"Geroff, Ginny! I told you, I'm fine!" Harry grumped. She was making as much fuss as she had the morning after the final fight with Voldemort.

A true daughter of Molly Weasley, she'd connived Ron and Hermione into making sure she got some time alone with Harry. After a reassuring hug - to make sure he really _was_ there for her own peace of mind – she'd read him the riot act at near-howler level. Then as soon as she'd had her say, she collapsed into his arms, crying _"Don't you EVER do that to me again!"_

Her fussiness now actually reminded Harry of the first time he ever met her and her mother, when Molly had been worrying over her sons on Platform 9 ¾. Ginny was carefully wrapping an ACE bandage around his head, after soaking it in an analgesic potion she'd learned from her mother years ago.

"You let this set for ten minutes so it'll do you some good, and I will," she responded acerbically, and tucked the end in. She gave him a peck on the lips, and leaned in so their foreheads gently met, well away from the impact spot.

Looking over at their teammates, they saw that George had gotten one of his Extendable Ears out, and was feeding one flesh-colored end into a knothole in the wall between the two teams' changing rooms. He put the other end to his own good ear.

"Wotcher, George?" The Heroes of Hogwarts had unanimously adopted Dora Tonks' habitual greeting of Harry as a memorial salutation. The red-haired jokester held a finger up for silence to his sister, listening to the Extendable Ear for another second, then practically threw it, ashen.

"Gor, they're talking about Fred," he hoarsed, and got up to walk stiffly away. The other Weasley children exchanged sorrowful looks for a moment, then Bill cleared his throat.

"He's okay, you know. He's just going through that 'seven stages' thing still. Once we get back in the air, he should be fine." He drank deeply of his water bottle, and hung his head for a moment panting. It was yet another lupine trait he'd been showing lately, and Ron and his siblings were worried that Greyback's gift wasn't done with their brother. "Reminds me of a bloke I worked with in Egypt, actually. He was a twin too, but fraternal. When his sister got killed in a tomb we were exploring, he … well, he lost it for a bit. But he got better. He told me what helped was staying busy. That whole 'Life goes on, so I should' argument."

Hearing that, Katie gave Angelina a nudge with her knee, and when the darker girl looked up at her, Katie gave her an arched brow. "Oh, all right!" Angelina muttered, then took off after George.

"What was all that about?" Harry and Ginny both asked.

"That," Katie answered, smirking smugly after her best friend, "was about time."

_Quidditch_

When the two teams headed back to the pitch, it was to find George and Angelina furiously snogging just outside the corridor exit, with a tear-streaked Hermione and Luna cheering them enthusiastically.


	8. Grounded

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Seven: The Match, Part 2

Harry leaped back into the air with a grin. Ginny and Katie were already swerving back and forth around Charlie, who'd won the toss-up. Chip swung under him warily, hoping his temporary teammate could manage to pass the Quaffle safely away if he had to. Maddie meanwhile was zooming around with her sister, plying the far end of the field as backup while simultaneously giving the Gryffindor Beaters something distracting to aim at. Bill unfortunately recognized the pack tactic for what it was, and stayed at their end of the field, facing off against Nick in a high-speed, dangerous tennis match from Hell seventy feet in the air.

After Leanbow ('_Leanbow, of all people!_' she griped to herself at the time.) missed the Bludger George smacked her way, Vida careened to the deck, cruising along with her toes millimeters from the turf the Rangers had planted across the Quidditch field. The Snitch had had a good twenty minutes to hide itself unobserved, and now she and Harry were both risking neck- and eye-strain trying to track the golden bugger down.

A ragged cheer went up from the stands, and Maddie twirled to see the Quaffle flying right at her head. Werewolf reflexes kicked in, she spun completely over in place, and kicked it straight back towards the Gryffindor goals, where it hit Ron with such force he bounced off the center goalring. It rang like a gong. Unfortunately, He didn't fall through the hoop, meaning no points, and he managed to grab hold of the Quaffle afterwards, so the British team had control again. Maddie swore and wheeled around to start covering Ginny again.

It paid off almost immediately. Maddie got to Ginny's position just in time to intercept Angelina's pass. "Hey!" the red-haired girl cried, swooping in circles around her and trying to make Maddie drop the Quaffle by sheer annoyance. The Water Ranger's lips peeled back from her teeth in a predatory display, and she barreled towards her tormentor's brother at the other end of the pitch.

Ron watched fatalistically as the girl in pale blue headed towards him. Just as he tried to match her last-minute swerve to his left, keeping one arm out the other way in case it was another feint, Harry went streaking straight down between them all, to a concerted gasp from the stands. Ron flubbed the save, but Maddie had thrown it wide thanks to Harry anyway, and it went between his two lefthand goals, pointless.

Harry had seen the Snitch. He was sure of it! Barreling straight down across everyone else's flightpaths, he failed to see Vida closing in on the shimmer of gold that had drawn both their attentions. Then it was too late.

Harry and Vida collided thirteen feet above the ground with a sickening crunch, to plummet the final four yards tangled together with their brooms as the Snitch took off again. Harry, seeing the thing disappear out of the corner of his eye, swore. That thing was worse than devilishly cleverly enchanted. It was _cursed._

Vida moaned from under his left leg and right arm. Their collision had made their landing look like a rather bad round of Twister™ gone horribly, medically wrong. "Wohoppen?" she groaned.

"We missed the Snitch, but we didn't miss each other," he reported fatalistically. "God, I want a shot of Firewhiskey." Trying to turn his body around to its correct alignment made him wince, and breathing became much, _much_ more painful. Trying to look down, he saw one of their brooms was jammed into his ribs.

Vida tried to chuckle at the lame joke, only to moan some more. Something was bent the wrong way, but for the life of her, she couldn't tell what. Everything else was screaming in pain too. "Forget Firewhiskey. I want a dedicated team of emergency chiropractors."

The pair became aware of belated footsteps closing in, and both tried to look up to see who was coming to rescue them. _'Oh good,'_ thought Vida with a giggle, seeing the number of feet sideways in front of her. _'Everyone.'_

"Wow," George said, surveying the pile of limbs and brooms. "Oi, Hermione! That new phone of yours got a camera? Mum and dad aren't gonna believe this one." He knelt down next to Harry's head, holding Ginny off with one arm. "Jest wait till we get them untangled, Gin. I don't think hugging him's the best idea right now." Two other people were carefully extracting the brooms from the tangle, and both players groaned when they heard one of them crack ominously.

"Oh, Harry …" Ginny cried. "Your Firebolt." She looked even sadder all of a sudden.

"'s'okay, Ginny," he managed to babble, trying to think about the lost broom instead of the possible lost limbs. "Not the first broom I've lost, is it? Surprised if it's the last, considering my life." Weak chuckles went around them.

"Gor, Harry, I haven't seen anybody that plowed since the second crash Kelly took at the World Cup." Ron sounded strange, almost worried. "Remember that match?"

"Yeah. Er, a bit," If Harry didn't know better, he'd think Ron was trying to distract him … "Look, what's the hold-up? Can't somebody just, I dunno, _Levicorpus_ me up off of her first, so we can both get fixed up, here?"

At least, that's what he tried to ask. He didn't get further than the first syllable of the incantation before someone clamped a hand over his mouth. "D-Don't say any spells, H-Harry. Don't eve-ven think one right now."

The worried voice was Hermione's, as was the hand. He could tell by the hand lotion she used; some weird concoction of lilies, aloe, and something that smelled like an engine cleaner. (You didn't spend seven months on the run with someone in a tent without becoming all-too-familiar with their choice in soaps and sundries.)

"What's _wrong_, gang?" Vida rumbled. They knew better than to hide bad news from her at this point. She'd almost been a Vampire. The Master had turned her sister into a Werewolf. She was entitled to some straight answers.

"You two are both skewered on Harry's wand," her sister muttered. Vida's eyes grew wide, and she started to shudder, making her and Harry cry out in pain. "God, V, don't move. It's through your leg." Maddie's voice squeaked at the end.

"All that running around last year, trying to ensure the downfall of You-Know-Who, and you end up dying on your own wand in a Quidditch accident," George smirked. "Can anybody here spell 'ironic'? I wanna make sure they get it right on his tombstone."

Ginny clobbered him with the Firebolt's remains. _"He's not dying!"_ She leaned down earnestly next to Harry, afraid to touch him, but (he could tell) using every ounce of strength in her cute, strong, young body to not reach out and try to help, herself. "You hear me, Harry James Potter? You are _not_ dying today. You promised me."

"_Tranzvisia," _somebody said from out of Harry and Vida's sight. "Okay, I don't see much in the way of the wand, and there's not much blood … Looks like we can just lift him after all." Vida vaguely recognized the voice, but couldn't think of the name through her pain. _"Finite Incantatum,"_ the same voice said.

"Wouldn't it be better to keep that up until we get them separated?" Bill asked from behind Maddie.

"I'd rather cast it again afterward to assess their damage, instead of stare through people in the meantime," the same cool voice said. It was infuriating Vida that she couldn't place it, but she didn't dare turn her head.

"Thank you, Itesis," Udonna said from near Vida's feet. _That's_ who that is, the Air Ranger realized. "I couldn't remember the spell."

"Understandable given the circumstances," Itesis replied. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Leanbow and Daggeron replied, from opposite sides of the accident. _"Wingardium Leviosa!"_ they both said, and Harry had the most unpleasant seconds of his young life next. He could feel the wand pull out of the hollow behind his hip, and felt every muscle in the area spasm. With blood flow unblocked, a steady trickle started coming out as well, but not the spray many had feared.

Vida looked up in wonder as Harry floated off above her. "Urgh," she said on sight of his wound, before they rotated him flat and somebody else floated a stretcher under him. Chip, Charlie, Ron and George grabbed hold like litter-bearers, and took off with him to get the Chosen One sewn back up.

"Aullroight, V, ye're next," Zander said, his cool metal hand brushing her short hair away from her cheek. "Heah, grab hould," he offered, presenting the metallic limb for her to hang on to during her move. He knew better than to offer her flesh and bone to crush in extremis. Vida gave him a wan smile, and with a wince for all the sore muscles involved, snaked her hand through his silver fingers.

"Okay, do your worst," she grunted. Daggeron and Leanbow lifted her as well, and the rest of her team (Clare took Chip's place) brought her own stretcher in, then carried her to the makeshift infirmary the teams' locker rooms had become.

Vida was much better off than Harry, it turned out. She'd been skewered by the narrow end of the wand, and it had missed damaging anything major in her thigh. Once they were both bandaged, potioned, and spelled back into a semblance of one piece, the two teams vanished the wall between the two rooms, and Vida and Harry looked at each other.

"So …" they both said at the same time, then chuckled. Everyone around them joined in. Once it was quiet again, Harry looked at Daggeron, their Quijudge. "Think we can call this off with _both_ Seekers out of action?"

He smiled tolerantly. "Only of both teams can't come up with a replacement."

Both injured seekers looked around expectantly, and found Ginny and Zander grinning at them respectively. Daggeron laughed.

"That will leave the Gryffindor's flying one Chaser light, unless you've got another spare player still."

"Uh, can you give us a second?" Harry asked. They had two more experienced flyers left besides Fleur, but he'd never seen either of them on a broom in an athletic capacity.

"Five more minutes, then either play light, or call it. Your choice," Daggeron said impartially. "I'll be waiting out on the Pitch." He gave both teams a wave, and headed back outside.

"Well?" Ron said, turning to Hermione, who had come in along with the other Gryffindor women once Harry - and the hole in his bum - was bandaged and covered. She gave him a terrified glance, then stared at her feet.

"Oh, ohmigod, Ron … Harry … No. I c-can't. I just … I can't." She fled from the group, never looking back up.

George shook his head. "Poor gel's never been right on a broom, Harry. Thought you two would have known that by now."

"Well, that just leaves … Luna," Ron said fatalistically.

"I'll go get her," Ginny said, grinning. "She's still up in the Commentator's stand, keeping the crowd entertained. Probably has them all looking under their seats for miniature giant space hamsters by now." She headed out the door, and looked back before leaving their sight. "She'll be thrilled, Harry. She tried out for the Ravenclaw team. She's a great flyer, but her housemates thought she was too distractable."

The Gryffindors let out a collective groan, and the Rangers across the space, who had gotten to know just how distractable - and _distracting - _Luna Lovegood was over the last week, all laughed.


	9. And the winner is ?

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.

Chapter Eight: The Match, Part 3

"You sure about this?" George asked Harry.

"Gotta be. Ginny's good, but she's better as a Chaser. 'sides, we all know Luna's penchants. She's as likely to catch the Snitch by accident as she is to Seek it on purpose." The two men grinned at each other.

"Ten seconds," Daggeron called. George jogged over to take off with the rest of the team, and Harry turned to climb into the stands.

He grinned at the sight of the crowd above him, an equal mix of the more curious, magically accepting human citizens of nearby Briarwood, and the mystic denizens of the forest. He also saw something he missed during a Quidditch match, concentrating as he was on his flying at the time. Unlike Muggle sports crowds, who did their best to get seats up front and close to the action, Quidditch fans had a tendency to take the top-most outer seats in the bleachers first, the better to see everything.

"Oh! Harry! Here, let me help," Udonna's motherly voice said from above him. She was in the nearest of the four high boxes with the new Commentators, Phineas and Vida. Harry looked up to see her peering down at him, then she disappeared, to come out of the door in the side of the box nearest to him. "Come on," she said with a grin. Wrapping an arm around him, she steered the two of them back to the door, and helped him up the steps to the top box. He tried not to lean too heavily unless he needed to.

They got to the Commentator's bench about three minutes back into the match. Harry cursed, wondering what he'd missed, but Vida leaned over and caught his hand in a reassuring grip. "Don't worry, Harry. Score hasn't changed, yet. Not for lack of trying, though." She patted the seat next to her, and with a quiet _"Thanks,"_ to Udonna, he settled in to watch, and help commentate.

It turned out sport-fan Phineas and amateur radio-host Vida, while capable of keeping a running narrative about who was where doing what, were both too new to Quidditch to get all their plays straight. So Harry jumped in with the necessary terms of the different maneuvers the two teams were using against each other. The three of them were talking up the various brooms the players were using during a brief lull in action, when Luna seized everybody's attention.

"I think she's seen the Snitch!" Vida cried, her _Sonorus_-enhanced voice ringing out. The crowd surged with cheers, all expecting the newest player to wow them with an early capture. It was not to be, to the Ranger team's relief.

Harry and the others gasped as Zander Bly dove to where Lovegood was headed, and the pair almost collided like Vida and Harry had. There was a concerted groan from the crowded stands as Luna veered up at the last second, and Zander flew right into a Bludger Bill had _'whock'_ed from the other end of the Pitch.

"Whoa! That was the Wronski Feint with teeth!" Vida announced for the fans. "What was that, Harry?"

"That was new even for me, V." Harry grinned, his amplified voice carrying his chuckle across the playing field. "I guess we'll have to call that the 'Luna Variant', huh, folks?" Another cheer went up.

Zander, who'd saved himself at the last second with his metallic arm, looked back over at Bill, who was staring off after Luna himself, just as flabbergasted. Haring off to his left with a shrug, Zander took a page from Harry's playbook, and headed high, trying to keep the whole Pitch in eyesight as he circled. He became aware of Luna, flitting back and forth as if she was a giant Snitch herself, about seventy feet lower down.

Bill and George kept a wary eye on Luna as well, taking turns swerving up from the main cluster of swirling players to knock back the occasional Bludger Nick and Leanbow targeted their replacement Seeker with. In the meantime, they did their best to harass both Charlies and Madison. Beaters' bats cracked like thunder across the Pitch as the four men all did their best to keep the others' team from scoring.

Chip finally managed another goal against Ron, tying the score up again, and Katie and Angelina decided enough was enough. "Ginny! Hawk's-head!" Katie yelled, passing the petite redhead the Quaffle from her brother.

The three Gryffindors arrowed together towards Clare, Ginny in the lead. Angelina did a hurried Sloth-grip Roll as Leanbow knocked a Bludger at her, and cried "Incoming!" She had to spin again the other way as a speedy George Weasley swooped past and swatted it right back, away from his sister.

"OW! _Hey!_ How does shie keep _doing_ thait?" Zander yelled from Angelina's Two-o'clock seconds later.

Curious, but too busy flying to turn and look, the dark-skinned girl listened to the commentary she usually tried to tune out.

"Whoa!" Vida was saying. "Luna puts her new trick into play again! With a twist! Give us the replay, Harry."

"Here's how it went, for those looking the other way. Leanbow, Beater for the Rangers, takes a shot at Gryffindor Angelina, who performs a perfect Sloth-grip Roll away from it. Bludger is then hit by George Weasley, who sends it back past Angelina. Leanbow deflects it up and away from himself, towards new Gryffindor Seeker Luna Lovegood, who swerves out of the way to give the hit to unsuspecting rival Seeker Zander Bly! And just like Zander, we're all wondering how she does it."

Hermione, sitting in a seat up behind Ron, was laughing her head off. She knew exactly what Luna was up to. The pair had been in Arithmancy classes together. Luna had been such a natural at it, Professor Vector had bumped her forward a grade after her first half-term. Along with the various Numerologies, Arithmancy also had included the same Algebra, Calculus, and Geometry as Muggle secondary schools. Now, Hermione could see Luna plotting her next tangents and vertices against Maddie as the silver-haired girl spun and twirled, ostensibly looking for the snitch.

Suddenly, Luna and Zander were both diving pell-mell towards Ron, and with an _'Eeeep!'_ Hermione saw why. _'So, she actually _was_ looking for the Snitch,'_ Hermione thought, watching breathlessly along with her bleacher-mates as the two Seekers raced toward them.

Ron looked all around himself in a panic, and upon seeing the sneaky Snitch doing loops around his right goal-ring, did his best to stay out of the pairs' way while still watching where the Quaffle was, just in case the Rangers managed to get it away early from the determined Ginny.

There was a deep _'gong!'_ sound, as Luna and Zander both grabbed for the Snitch at the same time, and Zander's metal limb slammed against the goal-post. At the same time, There was a piercing blast from Daggeron's whistle from the Rangers' goal-end, and Ginny could be seen trading high-fives with her teammates. The crowd was going crazy, as all turned to look from one goal to the other, not sure who was winning after the last ten seconds.

"Daggeron is calling a time-out as the Quijudges confer, and check to see who touched the Snitch first," Vida announced, as Zander and Luna, each with a hand clenched around the Snitch, set down on the Pitch under Ron.

Harry winced as he got to his feet, anxious to see better from the side of the top box. As he leaned over, Ginny appeared in front of them. The two grinned at each other, and Harry snagged the sleeve of her robe to reel her in for a congratulatory kiss.

They broke apart at the sound of a nearby growl, and looked around, expecting Bill. Vida was grinning at them. "Sorry, she said cheekily. "Couldn't resist."

"Pretty realistic," Harry admitted, smiling back. Having heard Bill – and their old DADA teacher Remus Lupin – both growl (and mean it!) before, he could be considered an expert. Ginny just grinned as well, and pulled Harry back in to finish their kiss.

"Commentator to the field, please," Daggeron bellowed. The four non-players all jumped.

"Give me a lift, Ginny?" Vida, the most limber of the three despite the bandage around her leg, asked. The red-haired Chaser nodded, and Harry stepped back so Vida could climb over the side of the box and onto Ginny's broom. The pair of young women cruised over to where the rest of both teams were gathered around Zander and Luna, along with Daggeron and his assistant Quijudges, Itesis and three of the Briarwood High School coaches.

"Okay, this is going to be one for the record books," Daggeron said, shaking his head. "We need to find out whether my whistle blew for the last goal before these two caught the Snitch."

"What?!" Ginny gasped. Quidditch fanatics that her family was, each with their own favorite teams, Ginny had more than her fair share of useless trivia regarding winning moments and close calls. The Chaser couldn't think of a time when the Quaffle had ever made a difference against the Snitch at the last minute.

"It is elementary, Miss Weasley," Itesis said, turning her kohl-limned eyes to Ginny. "The Seekers both caught the Snitch at the same time, and barring your final goal, the score was tied. We need to determine the exact sequence of events, to say whether the final goal is to be added to your team's score, or if the Snitch's capture, which would end the match, happened first."

"Do I get a say?" Ginny asked, thoughtful.

"How could that help?" Vida asked. "Wouldn't you be biased?"

"Actually, if the whole thing falls down to my last goal, I'd rather we ended the game with a tie." Daggeron looked at her in surprise, and the assistant Quijudges all gave her warm smiles.

"How very sportswomanlike," Itesis said, while waiting for Daggeron's ruling.

"How very Gryffindor," Luna added, her dreamy expression enhanced with the beaming smile she directed at her best friend.

"All right," Daggeron said, after reviewing the two available videos people had managed to make of the end of the match. One was Hermione's, who hadn't been able to resist catching Luna's triumphant capture on her cell phone's camera, and the other was a memory from old Grisilda, who had been sitting near the Ranger's three goals, willingly pensieved for the Quijudge. "Much as we would love to accept your selfless vote, Ginny, the winner of the match is …"


	10. Accidentproof your afterparty, please!

**May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?**

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration. No characters were (permanently) harmed in the writing of this story.

Chapter Nine: After-Party at the Rockporium

Ginny and Harry flew back to Briarwood together on her broom. It was their team's way of giving them some alone-time. Even Ron had agreed (reluctantly!) that Ginny had more than earned it. True to her friend Luna's words, the red-haired Gryffindor had declined the personal glory of the final point, to let the game end in a tie.

Now she and Harry were enjoying the relative peace and quiet a thousand feet over Briarwood Valley. Their course was a nearly straight line from the pitch to town, with majestic Rootcore in the middle. As they neared it, she gave an exhilarated "Hang on, Harry!" Ginny spun them over several times, then swooped to weave in and out of the great tree's uppermost branches.

After their final loop, Harry gave her waist an extra squeeze, and breathed into her ear. "Much as I appreciate the rush, between my head and my bum, could we take the rest of the ride a little easier, love?"

Ginny pulled to such an abrupt stop, they were pressed indecently close together on the broom's cushioning charm. She found she didn't mind at all. She was already blushing from his initial comment so much, the added flush to her cheeks from his proximity was just a matter of _micro_-degrees.

"Ginny?" Harry asked quietly, worried by her sudden behavior. She slowly sighed and turned in his arms just enough to see him over her shoulder.

"Just … wanted to be able to hear you better, Harry," she murmured, leaning back against him just that little bit more … Her lips were millimeters from his when her broom dipped downward sharply, and brought her back to her senses. "&\ gravity anyway," she hissed, and set them on a beeline to the Rockporium roof, anxious to be out of the air and _safely_ in her boyfriend's arms.

_Quidditch_

Zander and Chip popped out of the tree in front of the music store together, old Grisilda's punch cauldron slung between them. They hurried it inside to the refreshment table, which Leelee and her mother Nicki were busily filling with random party snacks from their café across the street. Most everybody else gave the steaming pot a wide berth, but Nicki leaned over and gave it an appreciative sniff when the guys plunked it down next to her.

"Aaaahh, nobody does up a proper good old party punch like Grisilda," the Queen of the Vampires sighed with relish. Her eyes flashed a glowing red for a moment. Chip hurriedly made a cross in front of himself with his morpher and the punch ladle, and Nicki laughed. "Relax, thunder-boy, I'm fine as long as this stuff's here. Grissi figured out decades ago how to make a beverage fit for a Queen."

"You knew her be-before?" Leelee asked haltingly.

"Of course, dear! Remember, we were only in there for the years it took you and Bowen to grow up, after all. I'd known Grisilda for decades. In fact, she once approached me to join our people. I'd still been deliberating the request when we were summarily locked away, unfortunately. I don't think she would appreciate the transformation nearly as much in her present condition …" Nicki trailed off at the expressions of shock on the three young adults' faces.

She was about to ask what they were so surprised about, when there was a low growl behind her. Whirling about, Nicki came face to snarling face with a furious Maddie Rocca.

"The enlightened Queen of the Vampirrres," the Blue Mystic Ranger growled. "All the time you werrre fighting us, all those people you trrried to converrrt by forrrce, including _my sisterrr … _you werrre _deciding_ whetherrr to take _volunteerrrsss?!"_ The last rumbled out in a bestial snarl, and Bill, Chip, Nick, and Vida all grabbed hold of Madison hurriedly from behind as her eyes shifted to lupine gold, and her canines visibly lengthened.

Necrolai backed up in alarm until she bumped into the snack table. Few things could harm the Queen of the Vampires permanently, but a raging werewolf could certainly make her immortal existence damned unpleasant in the short-term.

"Mom, why don't we get the rest of the food ..?" Leelee asked leadingly. Nicki nodded and edged her way towards the door behind her daughter, never taking her eyes from Maddie's. The two stared at each other until the permanently young woman was outside the Rockporium.

Maddie sighed raggedly, and Bill was the first to let go, followed by Chip, then Vida. Nick wrapped his arm tighter around his Blue sweetheart's and slowly turned her to face him. Bringing his other hand up to her face gently, he cupped her cheek, and she gave a noise somewhere between growl and purr as she turned her cheek into his caress.

"That's been a long time coming, hasn't it?" Bill asked quietly, as Fleur came up beside him now that the crisis seemed to be ending. She had her wand out, but stood calm and assured as he lay an arm over her shoulders and nuzzled her hair.

"Thanks for the angst, Mads, but that fight's long over with," Vida told her sister. "Chip saved me already."

"Doesn't mean we should have let herrr be," Maddie bit out, glaring out the door again over her shoulder. Her eyes and teeth were still more wolf than human.

"_Enfriar_, _mi pequeno_ _Sirena_,*1 she's on our side," Nick murmured soothingly. He brought her gaze back to meet his, and leaned in to nuzzle her nose. She sighed, and her golden eyes shifted slowly back to her normal brown. Bill chuckled as Fleur and Vida sighed, caught up in the tender moment.

"Hey, V ..?" Chip started to ask. He hadn't seen her display her girly side in years.

"Shut it, Mister Thorn," both Rocca sisters grumbled good-naturedly, as Maddie tilted her chin up to kiss Nick. Vida added an elbow shot to Chip's ribs when he continued to gawk.

"My work here ees done," Fleur whispered to her husband as she took Bill's arm and led him away to the Gryffindor table. The rest of the Heroes of Hogwarts were already sitting at it, except for their still-missing Captain and Chaser.

"I don't get it," Ron said, watching from his chair. He was closest to the standoff they'd all just witnessed, and turned to face Charlie and Bill as his oldest brother sat down with his wife. "Full moon's still a week away, right?" he waited until the two men (and Hermione) nodded. "So how come she looked like she was ready to change here in the store?"

"Maybe some difference in the American werewolf subspecies?" Charlie pondered, brow furrowed. Bill, who'd spent long hours talking his partial condition over with Remus Lupin before their Professor friend's demise, shook his head.

"No. It's more likely a reaction to her stress, and its connection to her magical core. I've met a couple other werewolves able to accomplish the same partial shift. One of them was Greyback. During that final fight at the school, Remus and I sought him out. We wanted to keep him too busy to wreck any more lives like he had … When we found him, he was in the thick of the fighting with the Inferii, using their plodding attack as cover for his own viciousness. Just before we took him down, he used his fangs to tear out the throat of Yancy Sparrow …"

Bill hung his head in sudden sorrow, and Charlie grunted. "I wondered what he was doing at the final fight. I saw his name on the memorial stones. He must have thought he could make a difference against the Dark Creatures old Voldy was bound to have recruited. Poor bloke. His marks in Care of Magical Creatures always were a touch higher than his Defense against the Dark Arts grades …"

"He was your friend?" Clare asked quietly from his left, where she was sitting next to the blissfully-snogging George and Angelina. Charlie nodded.

"Yancy and I were in the same year. He was in Hufflepuff, which he said meant he could afford to be friends with a Gryffindor. We were top of our year in C O M C, though whether that was through studying, or hanging with Hagrid all our spare time, I never could say." He and Ron traded grins. Ron was sure he would have failed everything without Hermione's help, but even he was the first to admit he'd actually liked Hagrid as a teacher … when the friendly half-giant wasn't endangering the classes' lives, anyway.

"When I heard about all the deaths you folks suffered through, I couldn't help but think how lucky we were," Clare sniffled. "I mean, none of our younger Rangers were lost, despite the Master's best efforts, and we actually managed to rescue one we thought long lost." She beamed tearily at her uncle Leanbow, standing in the far corner with her aunt Udonna and the Rockporium's owner, Toby.

"Make that _two,"_ Maddie countered, pointing quietly to their Quijudge, Daggeron. The others all turned to look at her at the verbal invasion, since she was still standing a good ten feet away in Nicks arms. "Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing," she added with her old, shy smile.

"Hey, why all de long faces?" Vida whooped in an outrageous Spanish accent. "Aren't we supposed to be havin' a _fiesta_?" She kicked her turntables on, and _'Livin' la Vida Loca'_ rang out. That got all the other Rangers laughing; they had just sat through 'Shrek' and 'Shrek 2' on DVD with Leelee, Clare, their three Mentors, and the Gryffindors, since they all had been _way_ too busy with real life to catch the newer one in theaters. Vida started mixing and scratching, and spurred by the others' improved moods, grabbed up a bowl of fruit from a nearby table and started gyrating with it on her head as she worked.

"Oh no! It's Carmen Miranda's ghost!" Chip cried, and made an exaggerated crossing motion before bowing low before her mixing platform.

"Where?" cried Toby. "I love Carmen!" He spun around to look, knocking over an Elvis Presley cardboard standup, which sent the copy of 'Elvis: Ones' it had been displaying in one hand flying.

The disc bounced off Zander's metal arm, making him cry "Hey!" and fall out of the chair he had been leaning precariously back in. The chair legs hit his table, sending his drink flying, which soaked the next person coming in the door. This of course was Harry Potter.

"Oy! I didn't order a soda to go!" the Chosen One yelled out, gaining everybody's attention.

"Wotcher, Harry!" George bellowed. "So … drinks're on you, eh mate?" The rest of the roomful laughed good-naturedly, which got louder when Harry grinned ruefully.

"What'd you do with our sister, Harry?" Bill asked, grinning also.

"She flew us the long way, for the scenery, and now she's helping Leelee and her mum with the food," Harry replied, stepping in just far enough he was on the doormat to drip.

Katie and Clare both hopped up to help him siphon off the rest of the soda. Katie and Harry were each working on one of his sleeves when Clare, who'd just finished with the back of his hair, clucked her tongue.

"I just remembered the spell Udonna used to use whenever I soaked myself with a potion accidentally," she said, eyeing the rest of his still-sticky frame. "Stand back, Katie." With a wave and a flick of her wand, Clare intoned, _"Nominus … vestimenta … excisionis … Harry!"*_2 Hermione was just standing to watch the unfamiliar spell, and Udonna was just turning around at the sound of Clare's voice, so neither of them was in a position to stop the seemingly innocuous spell when it went suddenly, horribly, _wrong._

A concerted gasp went up, and Harry cried out wildly and grabbed the first things to hand to cover up with. His clothes had vanished in a purple puff of smoke, down to his shoes. He stood on the doormat with an LP over his nether regions front and back, blushing brighter than any Weasley's hair.

"Oh look, girls. Dinner _and_ a show!" Nicki sang out from right behind him. She, Leelee and Ginny had come in unobserved as Clare was working her spell.

Ginny couldn't help it; it was her boyfriend's bum after all, just inches from her. She reached out with her unoccupied hand (she'd been the one holding the door for the other two, whose arms were full with _canapés_ trays) and tweaked the album he was covering with ever so slightly.

"And what a show," she whistled, with a wink in Hermione's direction. The frizzy-haired witch almost dropped her wand at her boyfriend's sister's sheer cheek. Luna, watching it all from her stool behind the register, started giggling insanely.

"_Ginnnn_," the long-suffering teen hero whined, rolling his eyes over his shoulder at her. She winked back at him unrepentantly too, making her brothers groan and the rest of their friends laugh all the harder.

"Oops," Clare muttered belatedly. "Don't worry, I can fix this …"

"NO!" the Rangers and Harry all cried together. Not that Harry had any reason in particular (present predicament aside) to object to Clare's spellcasting. But he was suddenly reminded of Gilderoy Lockhart's spotty wand-work, and thinking of his personal runs of bad luck.

"I've got this, mate," Ron said, standing up he still had a huge grin on his face, despite his sister's proximity to his nude best friend. He apparated back to the boys' shared room at the Sleepaway Inn two streets away, and returned a minute later with a robe, a spare outfit, and two pairs of socks. He handed one pair to Hermoine sheepishly. "Er, he'll need new trainers, 'mione. That was his only pair."

"I could almost say thank you," Hermoine told Clare, transfiguring the extra socks into a pair of sneakers. "He's been in that pair a year too long. Another month, and they'd been walking on their own." The other guys all laughed, while the girls in the room scrunched up their noses in unison. Harry was too busy dressing under the robe behind the counter to retort.

"Please play more of that music," Luna said to Vida while they watched the Chosen One spinning in place trying to pull up a sock. Vida could never say no to a willing audience, and she started up a Ranger remix she'd put together of 'Mambo number 5'. She went on from there to a run-through of all the songs she and Toby could find with 'magic' in the title or lyrics, and the two teams of heroic teens and their mentors danced the last of the night away. Luna even tried her hand at mixing to the other Hogwarts students' laughing delight, so Zander could take advantage of having two hands again and pull V onto the dance floor. They all laughed even harder when they realized Luna was remixing Disney's 'Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo'.

It was the best Quidditch party Harry had been to yet.

**Author's Notes:**

*1 _Enfriar_, _mi pequeno_ _Sirena_ = "Chill, my little Mermaid."

*2 _Nominus … vestimenta … excisionis …_ = "Named clothes destruction." (Clare _meant_ to use _exsiccare,_ which means "to dry out"!)


End file.
